Theo Hobson
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But is there such a thing as a moderate-liberal position on God and gays? Isn’t it either-or: either homosexuality is condemned in the Bible, or it’s fine, and the only problem is our inherited bigotry? That’s the standard assumption, promoted by both strident sides of this grim debate, but I don’t quite buy it. A narrow third way is possible.
My position on the issue, over the past decade or so, has been broadly liberal, with reservations. At first I felt my reservations were stylistic: the campaign for gay equality within the church often struck me as tediously self-righteous, and prone to dubious theological emphases. Some gay Christians seemed to heroise their cause, as if it were a special expression of the gospel, a way of recovering its radicalism. (Gene Robinson, the openly gay American bishop, embodies this attitude.) But gradually this uneasiness led me to a more careful assessment of the substance of the issue. I began to feel that it was not as simple as both sides assumed and endlessly claimed. There was a complexity to the dispute that it was not in the interest of either side to highlight. There was, in fact, some middle ground in this battle, but both sides chose to deny its existence.
The middle way consists in affirming gay priests, and stable gay relationships, but balancing this with another affirmation: of heterosexual marriage as the norm, the ideal. Can you have it both ways? Why not?
Of course gay-rights campaigners will object to such talk of ‘the norm’ and ‘the ideal’, claiming that homosexuality is of equal worth to heterosexuality, and that to cast doubt on this is homophobic. They must be told that, in the context of this church, such a claim is divisive — in a sense, just as divisive as the evangelicals’ biblical legalism. Have I offended everyone yet? Good.
The church was in fact inching towards this sort of third way in its report of 1991, Some Issues in Human Sexuality. Stable gay relationships should be affirmed rather than condemned, it tentatively proposed. But this principle should not be extended to priests: ‘To allow such a claim on their part would be seen as placing that way of life in all respects on a par with heterosexual marriage as a reflection of God’s purposes in creation.’ In other words, actively gay priests, with relationships blessed by the church, would pose an intolerable challenge to the tradition of heterosexual marriage.
This attempt at a compromise was frail and incoherent, in its claim that lay people could enjoy gay relationships but not priests. But it was something for liberals to build on. Their task was to argue that, if lay gay relationships were acceptable, so were those of priests — and to reassure the man in the pew that heterosexual marriage would remain the ideal. Not an impossible task. But they preferred to put empathy with gay people before everything else, to denounce all compromise. Before long, the window for building a moderate-liberal consensus closed: at the Lambeth Conference of 1998, evangelicals from around the world showed a new determination to win this fight, and the debate further polarised. A few years later the two poles went to war. And the liberals were -humiliated.
Part of the problem is that the British liberals have wanted to imitate the success of the American liberals; they looked at Gene Robinson’s election as bishop of New Hampshire and saw a lesson in sticking to your guns. But the two churches inhabit different worlds: in the American church the liberals have no serious evangelical competition. Here, they do. Also, the American liberals find it natural to graft themselves on to the civil rights tradition, and make nondiscrimination into an absolute principle. Here, that move has less authority. Britain needs a moderate-liberal position around which mainstream Anglicans can rally. It’s fine if gay-rights activists call it a sell-out — that will give moderate evangelicals permission to consider it.
The essence of the moderate-liberal third way is that it that makes a firm but limited affirmation of homosexuality. It affirms the ordained ministry of homosexuals, and it affirms stable gay relationships (which the church should bless). But instead of implying or asserting that homosexuality has equal status with heterosexuality, it upholds the old-fashioned view that heterosexuality is normative, and more worthy of idealisation, celebration.
This proposal is a waste of breath, some will say, for the evangelicals are firmly committed to seeing homosexuality as sinful. But some are less committed to this position than others; a large proportion surely see the need to climb down from their intransigence, knowing that this dispute is wrecking the Church of England. And barring a miracle in which God sets all gays straight, the crisis won’t end until gay relationships and gay priests are officially sanctioned. So let’s please pursue a third way. Maybe Justin Welby is among the evangelicals hoping that this sort of third way gathers force, and breaks the current deadlock. God help us if he’s not.
Because you read about christianity
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